Sunday 31 January 2010

Wicd asks for password on login


After installing Ubuntu 9.10 on my laptop shortly after its release, I moved from the default network manager to Wicd. This was primarily due to the fact that nm is unable to select between two cards installed at the same time, and throws a horrific hissy fit. Wicd has this capability.

In any case, upon login Wicd would ask for the root password in order to access network cards, which is incredibly irritating for a program that is meant to intialise as a daemon during bootup and typically be connected to the network by the time a user has actually logged in. A fix was needed!

After much googling a solution to the issue presented itself here. The problem occurs when the daemon is not properly started during bootup. When the Wicd tray icon subsequently starts it then fails to connect to an existing daemon and attempts to initialise the daemon itself, requiring the password input.

The fix involves adding the line exec wicd to the bottom of /etc/init/networking.conf.

So, in the terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/init/networking.conf

Copy paste "exec wicd" (without quotes) to a new line at the bottom of the file
Save and quit
Reboot the computer

Hopefully that will have sorted it!

Welcome to #!/bin/bash blog


As anyone who uses a 'nix based system will tell you, it doesn't matter how much research you do, there'll always be a fair few tasks along the way that require a fresh look at ye good olde Google to solve. This is the absolute one thing you need to not be afraid of if you intend to be a daily user on the desktop. Typically when I find a solution I'll apply it and then somehow manage to completely forget all about it in fairly short order. This necessitates a rehash of the entire solution finding session when I next come to set up a system.

Pain!

So I suppose this blog is really more for me than for anyone else, it'll be a handy place to store info any fixes/tips/cool programs that I find along the way. Who knows, maybe it'll also help a fellow user at some point...